yeah man. they're pretty solid guitars, especially their hollowbodies. take a look at the dot series as well. the casino is an amazing guitar too. i nearly bought one when i played it a few months back, but then i remembered my lack of money and had to leave the store before i made any stupid decision! haha! it was so nice...

Epiphone casinos are really good guitars Interpol's lead guitarist uses one and John Lennon used one. They're fully hollow and have p90s though so it can get pretty crazy at high volumes. If you do buy it and play it loud keep in mind that those pups howl so you might want to stuff some shirts in there.

The Casino is a cool guitar well worth the money. The Epiphone original guitars such as the Wilshires are good guitars and as a bonus the bat wing headstock is the best looking out there. Since I do not want to take over the thread I reserve comment on their Les Paul line.

You can't compare Epiphones to Gibsons. Gibson guitars are better. You also pay more. In terms of relative value, I'd say that Epiphones probably just have the edge. There's not much in it though.

The whole Epiphone/Gibson debate is vacuous and people should think of them as separate companies/brands and look at them for what they are rather than the endless comparisons.

Rant over.

I owned an Epiphone Casino for a while. Firstly massive difference between the old Korean ones and the newer Chinese ones. Mine was a Korean, and the guy in the store recommended I tried a Chinese one they had there. Honestly it was a completely different guitar. Felt totally different, the finish felt cheaper, and it was tonally muddy.

The Casino was a great guitar, the only reason I sold was that I really wanted a Jag and the Gretsch was fulfilling my hollowbody needs.

It will feedback a lot. It was a real pain positioning myself to try and negate that.

The neck wasn't very 'quick'. I prefer satin finish on necks and it was a bit too glossy for my tastes. I'd probably have sanded that off though eventually.

Overall Epiphone produce excellent hollowbody guitars. I'd say for the price they sell they're tremendous value and are probably the market leaders. A very good and affordable guitar is the Epiphone Dot. Similarly I dish out an endless line of superlatives when discussing the rest of the range. You really can't go wrong with these guitars. Obviously there are some negatives but you have to appreciate those in context.

By the way, Epiphone's hollow/semi-hollows are much better than their solidbody counterparts. Both in terms of quality, and their reverence in the market. They're market leaders for hollowbodies, so my comments above were reserved to that part. Their range of solids is a completely different story *cough*theyfallapart*cough*

I'd get the Fender Strat out of those two, but if you like the Epi go for it. I've played a few Epis and I really, really didn't like them, it felt like I was playing something made of lead, and the pickups were REALLY muddy, which is crap for the high-gain stuff I play. But, then, the one you're looking at's semi-hollow, so I'm assuming it's at least SOMEWHAT less heavy than a G-400, and it'll presumably sound better unplugged.

Well it's not a hollow body, but I have a G-400 SG copy. It's pretty good, I had it for about a year or so, but I thins its time to upgrade to a Gibson. But as a first guitar I'd say it's great.

Epiphone casinos are fully hollow, I used to own a 1967 version but sold it to get a gibson they dont look like they are hollow but the don't have the big block in the middle like the 335 or the riviera

i always find epi's to be a mixed bag, sometimes ya get one that's really nice, and then sometimes ya get one that needs some major setup work. i currently have an epi LP traditional pro, and it did need some frets to get filed a bit because some where not even. but i only paid 200$ for it...because apparently the pots where all wired backwards, and i spent 45$ to get that corrected. but the epi black beauty i had for a long while pretty much came flawless compared to my current.

i can afford an epi LP, a 2k Gibson LP...i wouldnt even gig with it anyway because it might get ripped off! sooo i'll just keep using the epi.

The stuff they make in china now uses cheap materials and labor , for the most part you do get what you pay for. Theres no comparison to a REAL epiphone those were great guitars .Now owned by Gibson and made in china its a mixed bag at best. Paid $ 650 for a futura prophecy its pretty has emgs floyd rose satin neck. That being said an 1/8" thick piece of maple will never be a drop top , tremolo arm was made of cheap pot-metal broke without any effort , came out of the box with the pickup selector switch broken. All in all not the worst guitar ever but you couldnt give it away now has a value of near zero for resale in less then a year. Just my 2 cents worth ,if you like the guitar thats all that matters really !

The stuff they make in china now uses cheap materials and labor , for the most part you do get what you pay for. Theres no comparison to a REAL epiphone those were great guitars .Now owned by Gibson and made in china its a mixed bag at best. Paid $ 650 for a futura prophecy its pretty has emgs floyd rose satin neck. That being said an 1/8" thick piece of maple will never be a drop top , tremolo arm was made of cheap pot-metal broke without any effort , came out of the box with the pickup selector switch broken. All in all not the worst guitar ever but you couldnt give it away now has a value of near zero for resale in less then a year. Just my 2 cents worth ,if you like the guitar thats all that matters really !

any epihone is a real epiphone, but i've had 3 epiphones and all 3 were built in 3 different countries...the first being Indonesia(black beauty), the second being Korea(standard les paul), and my third being China.

i currently have the china made Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro, after fixing some minor issues(mostly just a setup) it sounds great and plays great. long ago i had a Twin Reverb and an American Standard Telecaster....then my life went to hell:my Truck brakes went out, wife's car need a rack and pinion replaced, and my daughter needed a dentist...saddly the Twin and the Tele had to be sold...

I can not resist commenting on this stupid statement. Do you even have a clue who owns Epiphone? I did not think so. It is Gibson and has been since the mid/late 50's. Boys and Girls try and at least come up with a witty argument if you want to be a troll.

The stuff they make in china now uses cheap materials and labor , for the most part you do get what you pay for. Theres no comparison to a REAL epiphone those were great guitars .Now owned by Gibson and made in china its a mixed bag at best. Paid $ 650 for a futura prophecy its pretty has emgs floyd rose satin neck. That being said an 1/8" thick piece of maple will never be a drop top , tremolo arm was made of cheap pot-metal broke without any effort , came out of the box with the pickup selector switch broken. All in all not the worst guitar ever but you couldnt give it away now has a value of near zero for resale in less then a year. Just my 2 cents worth ,if you like the guitar thats all that matters really !

what, may i ask, would you call a "real" epiphone?

I like analogue Solid State amps that make no effort to be "tube-like", and I'm proud of it...

i'm tired of it too... i think people should get warned/banned for making stupid statements like that, whether they realise how stupid it is or not... it would seem very unnecessarily strict but it would make these forums a whole lot more useful to people who are genuinely asking questions because they want to learn more - i think a lot of people get misguided by random noob comments on here, and are especially misguided by the "general consensus" everyone here seems to have about certain things.

I like analogue Solid State amps that make no effort to be "tube-like", and I'm proud of it...

OP, they are completely different guitars. I'm a massive fan of both of them, though, and you really wouldn't be going far wrong with either.

To answer your question, the Epiphone archtop guitars are fantastic, as simple as that. The Casino will give you nice jangly cleans and the option of some quite open sounding light gain. I'm a big fan of that sound myself.

Either way, you wouldn't be going far wrong with either of those guitars.

Back before they were bought by Gibson and an Archtop , in the earlier parts of the 20th century the Archtops were really nice played a couple liked them all. Just an opinion and not very helpful Im sorry but the issues I have had with this guitar just annoy the crap out of me ,when its supposed to be one of their higher -end guitars.Not relevant to this question again I apologize.

I’m just getting back into playing after being away from it for many, many years. I am currently using a Michael Kelly Patriot Custom with a 15w Vox Valvetronix. It’s great; however I’ve always like the double cutaway hollow/semi-hollows and I am considering getting an EPI Sheraton II. I would call myself an intermediate beginner, and at this point I can’t justify spending the $ for a Gibson. I like classic rock, blues… My questions are:

Sheraton vs. Casino; is one considered better quality than the other or are they just “different”?

Are these considered low-end or mid-range EPIs?

When I try one out, is there anything particular I should look for in terms of quality?

Being a Sheraton owner, I can tell you that I fell in love with this guitar the moment I picked it up. Its a semi-hollow as opposed to the fully hollow Casino, meaning much less feedback at the expense of some of the woody qualities of a hollow-body.

Both guitars are excellent for blues, but for classic rock I'd lean more towards the Sheraton because it handles the gain a little better.

One feature I adore about the Casino, however, is the P-90 pick-ups and as you can see in my sig, I've swapped out the stock humbuckers for Mean 90s. The dynamic qualities of single coils really make this guitar come to life out of a tube amp or even through my Vox Valvetronix. I find the P-90s add clarity to cleans and a good crunch to overdriven sounds.

In the end, they're both solid guitars but I recommend the Sheraton because of its better sustain, versatility and feedback management.

a lot of epiphones are good guitars for the money, especially their semi-hollows. that being said, its not really comparable with a solid body electric, they do different things and have different strengths and weakness. my biggest complaint is a lot of the semi hollows have trouble dealing with lots of gain and distortion. in the end it just comes down to what you like better, just play them in the store for a while before you choose. this also pisses off guitar center douche bag sales reps which is always a plus. best of luck

Being a Sheraton owner, I can tell you that I fell in love with this guitar the moment I picked it up. Its a semi-hollow as opposed to the fully hollow Casino, meaning much less feedback at the expense of some of the woody qualities of a hollow-body.

Both guitars are excellent for blues, but for classic rock I'd lean more towards the Sheraton because it handles the gain a little better.

One feature I adore about the Casino, however, is the P-90 pick-ups and as you can see in my sig, I've swapped out the stock humbuckers for Mean 90s. The dynamic qualities of single coils really make this guitar come to life out of a tube amp or even through my Vox Valvetronix. I find the P-90s add clarity to cleans and a good crunch to overdriven sounds.

In the end, they're both solid guitars but I recommend the Sheraton because of its better sustain, versatility and feedback management.

Thanks, your comments helped alot!

I've read that alot of players change the pick-ups in the Sheraton, but I never knew what they changed it to and what sound they were trying to achieve. Somehow I have to figure out a way to compare the humbuckers to the P-90s.

its not like the humbuckers are a bad thing or anything. epiphones humbuckers just tend to be a little on the weak side tone wise. switching out to some higher end humbuckers would give you a good sound too. just different. P90s and humbuckers really cant be compared because they're so different sound wise. play similar guitars with both (some les pauls have P90s, so that might be a good bet if you find one strictly for sound purposes, or a PRS) and see what sort of sounds you like better. personally, I love both, but in different situations. its already been said what each do. just keep in mind, if you go P90, you will get feedback with high gain or volume.

i'm tired of it too... i think people should get warned/banned for making stupid statements like that, whether they realise how stupid it is or not... it would seem very unnecessarily strict but it would make these forums a whole lot more useful to people who are genuinely asking questions because they want to learn more - i think a lot of people get misguided by random noob comments on here, and are especially misguided by the "general consensus" everyone here seems to have about certain things.

although poorly stated that was still a valid opinion. the purpose of the forums is for us to communicate and express out ideas on any given subject. ok not everyone will have good advice but who are you to decide who is "worthy" or not. most of what is discussed here is total opinion and not right or wrong. do i find the constant flow of n00b ?s annoying at times , well yes. keep in mind that we were all noobs at one time and prone to make stupid statements. at least they have this and other forums to get some kind of info from, when i started the internet didn't exist and there was little info available. what "general consensus" does EVERYONE have here? i'll bet you can't find one subject we all agree on (with the possible exception that we all like guitars). using a stereotype to complain about noobs seems like kind of a noob thing to do if you get my meaning.

speaking of the Sheraton, how is this guitar's general tone for classic rock, blues? i wont be shoving any high gain in it because i have a classic rock and blues style to my playing. was looking at getting a new simi hollow sense i gave my Artcore to my niece(she is learning the guitar and i wanted to lend her a hand from a far).

hear the pickups in the sheraton were a bit muddy but im talking classic rock tones...more tube driven overdrive instead of high gain.